


Flip a Coin (Heads I Win, Tails You Lose)

by nessundorma345 (wastrelwoods)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Metaphors metaphors everywhere, Waxing poetic for no good reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 05:58:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastrelwoods/pseuds/nessundorma345
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are day and night, sun and moon, lies and truth.</p><p>Brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flip a Coin (Heads I Win, Tails You Lose)

Once upon a time there was a golden prince, and a silver prince who lived together in a kingdom much like heaven. In fact, heaven was located in a valley some five miles to the east, and when the sun hit the mountains just so you could see the tops of golden trees. Everything in this kingdom was golden, strong, and slow to change. Only the silver prince was nothing like his golden kin, and stood out, though he cloaked himself in shadows and gold as bright as lies (which he loved like nothing else) and pretended that he never wished to see a silver tree or two among the golden forests once in a while. 

Their father was a quicksilver king who sat on a throne of gold, who had given up his eye so that he might see farther. The golden prince assumed that he was a mighty warrior, and such belief was not entirely unwarranted. But beyond that, the silver prince knew that the king was a trickster like himself. He ruled well, and kept the land of restless warriors in peace for golden age after golden age after ceaseless golden age.

The golden prince was beautiful, and kind, but haughty and arrogant to a fault, and he was quick to anger but slow to change. The silver prince was never the same two golden days in a row; once gentle, now distant; once jealous, now loyal; once dooming his brother, now saving him. He changed with the endless spinning of the constellations; with the rise and fall of the sea into space at the edge of their golden kingdom. But through every change, he was always there to fight beside the golden prince his brother, whom he loved like no other. 

The really remarkable thing about the silver prince was not his wisdom (which was rare among his kin) or his wit (which was only slightly less so), but his serpent's eyes, which shifted from blue to green with every fluctuation, each motion of the stars in their spheres. The golden prince, on the other hand, was physically remarkable in all but his eyes, which stayed the loyal, constant blue of the sky even as his brother the silver prince met his eyes one day to swear his love to his brother and the next to curse and spit and try to kill him.

The golden prince was built of truths and his brother on lies, in his own not-quite-humble opinion. The silver prince knew that it was much more than that, that they were both built on misconceptions and delusions and careful omissions and imperfect, bitter truths and sweet, sweet falsehoods.

They were not only opposites, these brothers, they were two halves of a whole, and lived in peace as long as conflict raged beneath, like the still surface of a lake under which a foul monster sleeps. And lies in wait to make ripples that will grow into a vast, chaotic hurricane.

One day the golden prince waged war on a monstrous race of giants, beasts with deep blue ice tainting their blood. One day the quicksilver king sent him away to be taught somebody else's lesson, about love and peace and change. One day the silver prince watched his own blood freeze and his golden world shatter, and learned a lesson too long in coming; how even truths were made of lies and how brothers were not really brothers and that the words he thought were silver, different, Loki, they really all meant monster. 

One day the silver prince killed his father - not the quicksilver king, but the deep blue monster with a heart of frost. One day the golden prince returned to stop him, and called him brother, and the silver prince who was dangling by a single golden thread let go, and fell, and changed again.


End file.
